


Calculated Risk

by hogwartshoney



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 21:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1793440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hogwartshoney/pseuds/hogwartshoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint’s been captured by the SS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calculated Risk

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [1796 Broadway](https://archiveofourown.org/works/972937) by [rainproof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainproof/pseuds/rainproof), [teaberryblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaberryblue/pseuds/teaberryblue). 



> One-shot inspired by Chapters 431 - 437 of 1796 Broadway by Rainproof and Teaberryblue.  
> This won't really make much sense unless you've read at least that far.

Clint winces in the darkness as he slowly comes to full consciousness. There’s a roaring sound in his ears, his eyes feel like they’re on fire, and he’s having a bitch of a time trying to figure out where the hell he is… disoriented… tries to remember… _Ray’s place.. shouting… position compromised… gray van…. Becky out the fire escape…_

He can’t see through the rough blindfold, but rope bites into his wrists and along the backs of his arms. He clenches his fists tight around the criss-crossing fibers in his palm, testing their strength as he pulls against them, taking his weight onto his arms.

From what he can tell, he’s sitting on a wooden chair, tightly bound to it, the rope around his arms pulls them above his head and is attached to something in the ceiling. How cliché. The rope feels very strong, knotted through with some sort of metal link beneath the fibers, and he growls as he tries again. _Need to keep a cool head, think your way out of it, find out what they want, stay focused, breathe, they must have sprayed me with the same shit that got Becky…_

“The key, Agent Barton, is not to struggle.”

He freezes for a moment, assessing. He can’t see, hell, he can barely hear properly. Still, Clint Barton isn’t intimidated by anyone. Not anymore.

“The _key_ , you fucker,” Clint spits through his bleeding lips, “is for you to cut your losses, turn me loose, and maybe you’ll survive.”

“ _So_ fiesty!” The voice chuckles, sounds oddly approving, then there’s a massive blow to the side of his face and stars explode behind Clint’s eyes.

His body goes limp for a moment, the pain blossoms everywhere … the ringing is back… can’t see… _what the fuck just happened…_ he shakes his head to clear it, brings up his legs as best he can tied to the chair like he is, but he hears footsteps advancing on him again, bodies, 3- no, 4, and then blows are raining on him, everywhere. His head, again, fuck! his arms up, defenceless, can't protect himself… tries to block against the head shots but they’re double-teaming it… a fist to the ribs, hard, another… and another, he can’t catch his breath… cries out as he tries to breathe… 

“Enough!” the voice rings out harshly in the dark space, and Clint pulls it together enough to figure that they’re in a big room, possibly a warehouse, given the metallic sound of the echoes of their shoes as they leave, the door slamming behind them, the sound booming in Clint’s head.

And fuck! everything hurts! 

He knows he can’t stay here. They’re not coming for him, the Avengers are spread too thin as it is; he has to deal with this on his own. He knows his emergency watch signal went off when he was grabbed, but he has no idea how long he’d been unconscious. It’s been a couple of hours at least, though, if the dryness of his throat and the growling of his stomach are any indicators.

He remembers the time being close to noon, back at the apartment before things went fuckwise, so, figuring two hours, maybe three; there aren’t many more daylight hours left. He could bide his time, conserve his strength until later when he’d do something...

He manages to get the blindfold off after entirely too many attempts, since his arms are starting to go numb and he couldn’t get the right angle. Blinking in the muted-yet-still-bright light, he takes in his surroundings and his wounds.

Arms bruised, several cuts, bleeding slugishly, but nothing worth worrying over. Torso and back feel sore from all the beatings, hurts a bit to take deep breaths, but so far, nothing feels broken. Legs not too bad but, bound as he is at the thighs, shins and ankles, he’s not getting off the chair easily. Hands expertly bound – knots made by someone who knows what they’re about. He cranes his neck towards the ceiling, trying to see just how it’s all attached, but the darkness of the high rafters makes it near impossible. He’ll just have to take his chances.

He knows he can’t delay – his arms are already nearly useless, but he’ll use the lack of feeling to his advantage, ‘cause this… is gonna hurt. 

He gives himself a moment or two to really prepare for this, clearing his mind of everything extraneous, focusing on the mission, calculating the movements, the angles, positions. Weighs the risks. He runs through the sequence again, adding Plans B through K before he’s just repeating himself.

It’s time.

Slow, deep breaths, expanding his lungs as far as they’ll go before his sides protest. Luckily, having his arms slightly elevated makes it easier to fill his lungs, and he feels the air filling him, up into the apex of his lungs, beneath his collar bones, good long deep breaths, flooding his system with oxygenated blood, breathing out slowly and deliberately. Three final breaths; measured, cadenced, and he’s ready.

He reaches up as far as he can and wraps the ropes around his wrists, once, twice, gripping them as tightly as possible as he contracts his abdominal muscles, lifting his body and the chair off the ground. The ropes bite into his flesh, and for a moment it’s almost too much, but then he’s managed to swing his lower body up over his head, and the ropes behind his arms and along his shoulders take the brunt of his weight.

He tries to hook his foot or one of the legs of the chair around the rope, trying to break off one of them so as to destabalize the entire thing, but he misses, twice, his body struggling to maintain the position because he can’t screw this up… he can’t miss… he never misses.

His foot slips out from the tenuous hold he has on the rope and he’s finished, knows it in the way his shoulders feel wrecked, knows it in the muscle fatigue as his body just fails him, and he barely has the strength to slow his downward swing enough that he doesn’t rip his shoulders out of their sockets, but as he flails at the rope, pushing his muscles for just a fraction more strength, more stamina, more something… he’s falling, the rope suddenly slack, and he’s crashing to the ground, hard, his legs slamming onto the ground seconds before his head does…

He wakens to pain, his head pounding, ears ringing, and everything’s fuzzy. He takes a few steadying breaths and the fog clears slightly as he examines himself, moving and testing fingers, hands, feet, legs, shoulders, neck. Hurts, most of it, but nothing _feels_ broken. He prods gingerly at the rapidly-swelling lump on the back of his head, but there’s no blood on his fingers, so he’ll live.

His fall managed to break the chair, and he carefully works the pieces of wood out from the rope bindings. He’s moving slowly, he knows this, but keeping conscious is still his number one priority. He gradually releases the knots of the ropes and marvels at the cracked wooden pulley that landed not a foot from his head. Dry-rotted, looks like, and working very much in his favour, although the crash is sure to have alerted someone.

Sure enough, he hears the sound of hurried steps and only manages to throw his body behind a small pile of crates moments before they crash through the door. He wishes that he was up high, able to see better, and apart from the pieces of chair, he’s defenceless against the three goons with their crowbars and… knives. Fuck.

There aren’t many options for hiding in the warehouse, and before long they’re circling his cover. He’s made himself as small as possible, but he still only has time for one good shot, stabbing the broken end of a chair leg into one man’s thigh as he kicks the side of his knee _hard_. The man screams and is down for the count, but the other two converge on Clint too quickly for him to do more than get to his feet.

They attack together, but it’s not coordinated, just pure muscle, and although Clint’s good, he’s fatigued, and that makes him sloppy. He manages to duck under an overhead swing from one goon with a crowbar, steps in close and hits him under his chin with the point of his elbow, but while the man’s going down, out cold, the other guy smashes him across the face with his fist.

Clint staggers back but the man advances, swinging his knife wildly, and Clint’s quick, but the guy’s a big man with a long reach. Clint manages to parry most of his attacks, but a thin stripe of fire blooming along his ribs means that he’s been cut. His side feels warm, his shirt clinging to him, and again, he knows that it’s not life threatening, but it’s slowing him down.

The man has picked up the dropped crowbar and comes at Clint again, and Clint’s a bit slow on the uptake, stumbling backwards before tripping and slamming side-first into a low workbench. He almost blacks out from the pain… he’s sure they’re broken… fuck, he’s no good with broken ribs… he can’t catch his breath for a moment but he pulls himself up, squaring his shoulders as best he can and preparing for the next onslaught.

There’s a sudden explosion to his right and the unmistakable whine of repulsors, mere seconds before his attacker is flung aside by the blast. Clint ducks reflexively, even as relief floods through him; he’s never been so happy to see anyone in his life, even Stark. The adrenaline still sings through his body but he’s unsteady, staggers, goes down on one knee, and it seems mere moments before Stark has him in his arms, gripped close to the front of the suit, Clint’s feet supported on the armour’s boots. There’s a long feeling of instability, of vertigo, of the world turning outside of his body, and then he’s being lowered to a stretcher, a light flashing in his eyes, pressure cuff around his arm, and Stark’s voice, agitated but not angry, so that’s something.

He tries to get Stark’s attention but he’s not even sure how much he’s actually succeeding, everything is slow, hard to move, it hurts to breathe too deeply, but somehow Stark sees him and comes over.

Clint has to know. “Becky?”

“Safe, my man, we have her.”

And just like that, some of the pressure in his head abates, the constriction around his heart lessens. _She’s okay, she made it out…_

Stark must have seen Clint’s unspoken plea because he turns to the medics and issues orders. They’re visibly unhappy but nod anyway as they turn back to his stretcher again.

“I’m going to have them check your eyes and spine, clean up those cuts on your hands and the one on your side, and then I’ll take you home. Square deal?”

Clint sighs, carefully because his _ribs_ , man, but yeah. Square deal.

~ fin ~


End file.
